Broken Goddesses
by OriginalAlcy
Summary: When the disparate lives of an Alliance engineer and an enigmatic Cerberus operative begin to follow a parallel course, circumstances conspire to make a collision inevitable. The impact will almost destroy one of them, but at the same time it will have the potential to save them both. AU.


**A/N:** I could write several paragraphs explaining the premise behind _Broken Goddesses_, but I will remain brief and hope that the unfolding storyline speaks for itself. What follows is a character-driven AU set in the Mass Effect universe (without the consuming influence of those pesky Reapers). Favourite (and a few not so favourite) characters will show up wearing different but familiar guises.

This story is rated M for a reason and as such will include violence, foul language, and sex scenes. I also tend to write towards the darker edge of the spectrum, so if you prefer your eggs fluffy, please proceed with caution.

_Broken Goddesses_ is entirely unrelated to any of my other Mass Effect stories, save for the fact that its gestation came about through one seemingly insignificant line - _Another time, another life. _

**Broken Goddesses**

**Chapter One**  
**The Worst Team in the League**

**21 September 2183**

Slender, almost elegant fingers wrapped around the curvature of the ball. Her thumb lingered over the embossed letters of the familiar branding. It trembled as she attempted to trace the first 'S'. Even her hand seemed giant-like next to the miniature handgrips. The ball wasn't regulation size. It was small, made for a child's hands. She finished tracing the letter. It was no longer the brand she saw but her own name - 'S' for Shepard. Her fingers tightened until the pliable surface gave way beneath the pressure. With one swift movement of her arm, she threw it hard against the opposite wall. The ball hit with a solid thwack and then rebounded at pace. With her sharp reflexes undiminished by lack of activity, she snatched it out of the air with a satisfying smacking sound when it struck her palm. The act of throwing and catching was repeated again, twice, three times. It continued until she eventually lost count. Throw…thwack…smack.

By the time she stopped, her arm had begun to ache from the constant motion. The centre of her palm had started to redden beneath the jarring impact. She studied the ball again, fingernails sliding through the grooves etched across its surface. It was a decent enough replica.

_It damn well should be for ten credits_, she thought. A memory followed – the almost deserted kiosk, and the indecision that came when an excited child was faced with a vast array of choices.

Her jaw tightened and her arm whipped out in another throw. Anger fuelled the movement. Her concentration slipped and she misjudged her catch. The ball grazed the tips of her fingers and hit the wall behind her, ricocheting off and coming to rest beneath the bed. Shepard made no attempt to retrieve the ball, instead remaining where she was sitting on the floor, her back propped up against the wall. She crooked her legs, bringing her feet closer to her so she could prop her elbows on her knees and place her head in her hands. The inactivity brought with it a fog. It descended rapidly, filling every crevice of her mind with images, sounds and smells. The underlying smell was one she loved – freshly turned, rich soil. It was tainted by what came after – the nauseating aroma, the scent that haunted her nightmares. Metallic, acrid – it was the smell of fire and brimstone. They were smells that she understood just as well as the first, but they were never supposed to mingle.

In the distance she heard a sudden grinding of metal – not the rusted screech found only in nostalgia, but the clinical swish of modern technology. Slow, deliberate footsteps followed. Each one tapped in time with her heartbeat as they drew closer. Shepard was still scrubbing at her eyes in an effort to stop the images playing behind them like a vid. They were red raw by the time a shadow descended over her body. Her hands fell. She didn't care that it probably looked like she'd been crying.

"Is it time?" Shepard asked. The question was redundant. Why else would someone have come for her?

"It's time," was the brusque answer she received.

With an ache in her gut, Shepard recognised the voice immediately. She turned to face him. He was alone. The bars of her cell gave the impression that his body was divided into blocks. Blocks containing his dress uniform – some navy blue, some with the gold braid denoting his rank. His face was split in two - dark, uncompromising. What she could see of his expression revealed no anger, only disappointment. It hurt because she felt that she deserved his anger. The disappointment and the fact that he had come for her himself implied that he still cared.

As Shepard heard the door to her cell slide open, she peeled her body from the floor in the graceless manner of one who had been sitting for too long. Stiff bones creaked in protest as she straightened to standing. A glance downward confirmed that her own dress uniform was creased beyond repair. She had enough pride left to be embarrassed and tried to smooth it out with several brisk strokes of her hand. When she raked both hands through her cheek length red hair, it felt greasy and unkempt.

He'd come alone. His sidearm remained holstered as she approached even though they both knew she could kill him inside of a few seconds. She paused at the threshold to the cell and met his flinty gaze. "For what it's worth, Anderson...I'm sorry."

Admiral David Anderson regarded her for several seconds. "Save your contrition for the panel, Shepard. We both know better."

* * *

_22.37. Shit._

A quick glance at her omni-tool confirmed that she'd missed her curfew by over an hour. Oriana Drake muttered another half-hearted curse under her breath as she quickened her pace. By the time she reached her front gate and paused to input the security code, her heart rate had risen markedly. Once safely inside the courtyard, she slowed her steps and tried to find a measure of composure. Excuses came to mind easily, but she dismissed each in turn as she knew it would be pulled apart in seconds. The truth was so pathetic that she did not want to even mention it.

The front door was unlocked which would normally be unusual, but Oriana imagined that her father had been standing on the doorstep moments earlier. She scowled when she thought of him peering out into the darkness, checking the time with almost military precision. When Oriana entered the house, she was already steeling herself for the inevitable confrontation. Her blood was pumping with the determination to not simply accept that she'd broken the rules. She was prepared to fight. At seventeen she deserved some measure of independence, not a 9.30pm curfew that made her a topic of pity amongst her friends.

The foyer was empty. A frown furrowed her brow as she moved forward. She knew her heels would make too much noise on the tiles so she slipped them off. A quick glance in the nearby mirror was enough to confirm that she looked presentable - just. Her black hair fell down to her shoulders, curling slightly near the ends. Pale, creamy white skin that was inexplicably flawless. Only her startlingly blue eyes betrayed her. They were red-rimmed and hollow. There was nothing that could be done other than to leave the lights turned down low as she moved into the house proper.

As Oriana passed through the parlour and the dining room and moved into the kitchen, she saw no sign of either parent save for a half-empty glass of red wine sitting on the kitchen table. Almost casually, she wrapped her fingers around the glass and lifted it to her lips. She drained it in one swift movement. The sound of the glass hitting the kitchen table when she discarded it seemed to echo due to the utter silence. Noise was always muted in the house, but she had expected something – a wall-screen playing, or the soft sounds of one of her mother's favourite composers filtering throughout the house.

It was too much to hope that her parents had finally realised that she could be trusted to stay out after dark and make responsible choices of her own. Oriana's bare feet padded from the tiles to the cream carpet that was laid throughout much of the house. She'd always hated the colour. It was too pristine, too revealing. Any minute blemish stood out in stark contrast – exactly like the three drops of red at her feet. Oriana paused and stared at them. She thought back to the wine on the table, but the drops were too red. They were blood.

_Don't be stupid, Ori. It's wine_, she admonished herself. It was the most likely explanation. Neither of her parents engaged in any activities where they would be likely to cut themselves. The Drakes had a cook, a housekeeper, and a gardener. The first noise she heard was upstairs – several agitated footsteps. It was more than likely her father pacing. Drawing in a deep breath, she started to ascend the stairs. She had no desire to drag anything out. All she wanted was to receive the requisite lecture as quickly as possible so she could go to bed.

As she reached the landing, she heard another sound – a rhythmic pounding she didn't recognise at first. Oriana strained to hear to try and ascertain the source of the noise. It was only when she neared her parent's room that the penny dropped in spectacular fashion. Bodies bouncing on a bed, occasional determined grunts, and a soft, drawn out moan. An odd nausea descended. Were her parents actually having sex? The queasiness was tempered by the hope that they were busy enough for her to simply sneak to her room.

Everything was shattered when she heard several more footsteps – louder, more urgent – and the irate voice that followed.

"You fucking dumb-ass cunt!" The words sounded as though they were hissed through gritted teeth. "You were supposed to take care of her, not fuck her!"

Oriana dropped her heels and her bag. They both fell to the floor and landed with dull thuds. Her heart hammered in her chest. Despite the urge to flee, it took an almost inhuman amount of effort to will her legs into motion. They felt like jelly beneath her weight, moving only in uncoordinated jerks as she stumbled backwards. She forced herself to take the stairs two at a time in her bare feet. In her panic she couldn't make up her mind as to what to do. Call security, hide, get the hell out of the house? Everything seemed slow and futile. In the semi-darkness her right foot caught on something solid that should not have been lying on the floor. Her body launched forward and she crashed heavily to the carpet. Her first instinct was to throw her hands out in front of her. The carpet was damp and sticky, warm to the touch. When Oriana held up her hands in front of her face, her palms glistened in the darkness. A scream was stuck in her throat as she tried to scramble back to her feet. In her terror she ended up clawing at the carpet in an effort to shake whatever it was that weighed down her legs. Oriana flipped herself over onto her back, lashing out with her bare feet. When she saw what held her, the scream emerged as a soundless wail of terror.

It was her father, or rather it _had been_ her father. His face was an almost unrecognisable, bloody pulp, gristly in the semi-darkness. Somehow he was still alive. His eyes pleaded with her, the whites huge amidst the red. Only a pathetic hiss of air escaped from his throat when he tried to speak. The sentiment behind his attempts to speak was obvious. _Run!_ Although the rational part of her mind knew that there was nothing she could do to help him, she could not force herself to leave him.

"Dad..." Her hand stretched toward him but she could not find anywhere to touch him that was not covered in blood.

The heavy footsteps thudding through the house reminded her that it was already too late. One man rounded the corner in front of her and a lazy grin developed on his weathered face when he saw that his chase was already over. His weapon remained holstered at his side as he advanced toward her. Oriana whimpered. Any other response was buried beneath the abject terror that gripped her body and mind. Additional footsteps beyond the room heralded the arrival of the second intruder. Unlike the first, he was young, handsome, and would not have looked out of place amongst her friends at school. His clean cut image was spoiled by the fact that he had not even bothered to do up his belt.

"Fuck. I thought the mother was nice, the kid's something else!" he leered as he walked further into the room. "The job only said she had to be alive-"

"Stop thinking with your fucking cock, you moron!" his partner snapped. "We screw this up any further and we're fucked. Grab the fucking kid and let's get the hell out of here."

The young man's expression twisted into a scowl. "Shit, fine. Did you get the safe open?"

His question aggravated with its sheer impertinence. He turned cuffed his partner over the head with the flat of his hand. "I didn't come down in the last shower, you little shit. Everything has been taken care of."

It was only when he advanced toward Oriana that she was finally jolted into a response. She clawed at the carpet, scrabbling backwards with her bare feet slipping on the carpet. The dress she wore was rucked up around her white thighs. She saw him looking. Her trembling hands tried to tug it downward but the palms of her hands kept slipping on the fabric. Her father wheezed, a shuddering rattle of breath. Before he could draw a second, Oriana saw a flash of metal and heard a sharp zip that hardly seemed loud enough to reach her ears. She froze. When he turned back to face her, there was a repulsive grin on his face as he holstered his gun. Her bottom lip trembled.

"Whoops," he laughed as though it had been a silly mistake.

Things flashed in the semi-darkness – blood, the whites of his teeth...a blue flare that suddenly lit the entire room. A body stumbled backward as a shadow launched itself forward. There was a fist wreathed in biotic energy, followed by a nauseating sucking sound as it plunged through flesh. The body crumpled to the floor. It jerked several times before it was still.

"What the fu-"

The pistol rose in an arc. The zip sounded once, twice, but both shots missed the dark shape moving toward him. Through a veil of tears and the sounds of her own sobs, Oriana witnessed the coming fury. Her assailant fought back with practised motions, but each effort was thwarted with apparently minimal effort. Two fists glowed in tandem before thrusting forward and sending a wave of dark energy pulsing outwards. With a strangled howl he was lifted from his feet and thrown clear across the room. There was a sickening crack as his head struck the wall at speed.

Oriana did not see his body fall. She could not drag her gaze from the shadow in front of her. A hiccup broke the silence. A stream of liquid ran from her nose. It tasted salty on her lips. The shadow stepped forward. A shaft of light fell across a pale face and red lips. Everything else was black – the woman's hair, her skin-tight clothing and her flashing eyes.

"Are you going to kill me too?" Oriana whispered.

With a graceful movement, the woman folded her lithe limbs into a crouch. A soft light fell across her face. Her eyes were not black. Oriana's lips parted. It was almost like staring into a mirror – if the mirror aged her by a decade, maybe more. Her doppelganger's age was difficult to guess. There were no smile or frown lines creasing her marble skin, but the ice in the depths of her eyes could only form through experience. Oriana was still terrified.

"No." For a split second the woman's mask slipped and her expression flickered across a short spectrum - pain, loss, regret. Her ruby red lips parted and she exhaled softly. "_Ori_." The two syllables were laden with emotion, almost as though she had waited a lifetime to speak them aloud. Seconds later the mask fell back into place. "Oriana, I'm your sister."

* * *

**Almost one year earlier...**

The shot went wide, accompanied by a collective groan from the home side's supporters. Vivian Shepard – Commander in the Alliance Navy and supporter of the League's worst performing biotiball team - had already been driven to her feet by the mounting excitement. Now she pressed her fist to her forehead in disappointment and tried to stifle her rising frustration alongside that of the crowd around her. She cast a nervous glance toward the scoreboard to remind herself that the Seattle Sorcerers were still down by five with only a few minutes remaining on the clock. If they actually managed to win, it would be their first victory of the season.

Even though the individual players would not hear her over the roaring crowd, she cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled, "C'mon, at least act like you're trying to score! Show some fucking-"

A chill enveloped her body as she clamped her wayward mouth shut. Shepard turned and looked down at the small figure sitting in the seat beside her. Flashing dark eyes met her own green ones and she knew immediately that her voice had not been swallowed by the raucous arena.

"You swore," was the abrupt accusation.

"Yeah, I guess I did." Shepard winced apologetically. She studied the young girl's indignant expression and knew that her mistake was going to cost her. "Sorry, Max."

"You promised Mum that you would stop -"

"It was once!"

Dark-eyebrows lifted incredulously beneath a mop of unruly black hair. "Bastard is a swear word too, you called the ref one five minutes ago. And before that you were yelling at the Maestro's striker. You called her a-"

"Max Ruiz-Shepard, don't you dare repeat that!" Shepard suddenly remembered what she'd said, and they were words that an eight-year old did not need to know. Below them in the arena the game was still being played, but Shepard was concentrating far too intently on her precocious daughter to care what was happening with the score line. Max had her arms folded across her chest and a reproachful expression on her face that was almost a carbon-copy of her mother's. Shepard was entirely grateful that her better half had not accompanied them to the match.

"You said it," Max pointed out.

"I'm much older than you…and also far stupider," Shepard muttered. She sighed with resignation. "You know if you tell on me all you'll get from your Mum is brownie points?"

Max grinned impishly. "Ten credits."

It was the elder Shepard's turn to raise her eyebrows. "You cheeky little pyjak!" She pursed her lips and emitted another sigh. "Done." She shook her head in disappointment, strands of red hair falling across her face which she blew away with an irritated puff. She turned back to face the game, but her interest the outcome had since waivered. "Bribing my own kid, I am officially the galaxy's worst parent," she muttered to herself.

At the final whistle, the Sorcerers had actually managed to increase their deficit with the Maestros by another three points through a combination of bad calls by the ref and a complete lack of creativity. Shepard and Max joined the streams of disappointed fans filtering out slowly out of the stadium, pausing long enough to part with ten credits worth of guilt money on a replica biotiball at one of the merchandise kiosks.

"Stick close, kiddo," Shepard warned Max. Her daughter was too intently focused on her purchase to realise that she was holding up a number of already worked up Sorcerers fans. She reached out and bundled Max to the side of the concourse, flashing an apologetic smile to those behind them trying to pass them. She hunched over to bring herself closer to Max's height. "Here, let's put that in your backpack so you don't lose it."

"I wouldn't really have told Mum," Max offered with an earnest expression. "Maybe...you could still take the ball back?" The offer, as sincere as it was, also managed to sound slightly reluctant.

"I could, but then I wouldn't get to prove how good I am at biotiball," Shepard replied as she tucked the ball safely away.

"Hey!" Max's brow furrowed suspiciously. "You're not a biotic!".

"Yeah, I suppose incinerating the ball would ruin the game," Shepard replied with a wink. As an Alliance engineer, complex tech powers were her speciality.

Max laughed. "It would be funny though."

Shepard spun Max back around to face her and couldn't help but smile as her daughter tried to stifle a yawn. "Come on, we need to get you home on time or I really will be in big trouble."

At some stage during the skycar ride home, the excitement of the evening's entertainment finally caught up with Max. When Shepard felt the body tucked in the crook of her arm go limp, she looked down to see that her daughter's eyes were closed. She grinned and tugged her in closer to her body. The evening was hardly cold, but she found a measure of reassurance in the warmth of her daughter's body. After everything she had done in her life, the people she'd killed, her family was one of the things she had done right. Max stirred only slightly with the movement, grabbing a fistful of her mother's hoodie in one small hand in an unconscious effort to keep her close.

Their apartment was largely in darkness when Shepard carried her sleeping daughter through the door. The soft glow of a single lamp fell across the sleeping form of her wife where she'd fallen asleep with a book open on her lap and a half-empty glass of red wine on the table next to her. Although Shepard tried to move as quietly as possible, she could do nothing about the abrupt sound the door made as it closed behind her. Elena Ruiz's eyes opened and a small smile crossed her face when she saw Max sound asleep in Shepard's arms. Shepard pointed in the direction of Max's bedroom and mouthed 'I'll be back in a minute.'

In actual fact, it took Shepard closer to ten. A bleary-eyed Max woke up whilst her shoes were being taken off and insisted that she be allowed to sleep with her new biotiball. Then followed a momentarily enthusiastic conversation about the match and why the Seattle Sorcerer's had lost. Thankfully, exhaustion caught up with the eight-year old as Shepard offered a deliberately in-depth explanation how a lack of defensive discipline had contributed to the chaos at the breakdown.

When she left the bedroom, Shepard found Elena's seat empty. As she moved forward, she felt a soft breeze filtering through the open door leading out to the balcony. She saw her wife leaning against the railing, her long black hair swirling around her. Shepard approached slowly so she could appreciate the sight of Elena in her sheer silk nightgown and the manner in which it hugged her lithe body. The white of the silk contrasted against her skin – the colour of dark, rich honey. When she placed a hand on either side of her waist and drew Elena back into her body, she felt immediate stirrings of desire. She buried her nose in her fragrant tresses for a few moments before Elena drew her own hair to one side to allow her wife access to her neck.

"Mmmm, hello you," Elena sighed.

"Hello yourself, Dr Ruiz," Shepard whispered.

"And how are the conquering heroes?" Elena breathed as Shepard deposited a small trail of kisses on her warm skin.

"I wouldn't exactly use the word 'conquering', more like 'satisfied.' The company was good, but the Sorcerers were as shit as they ever were," Shepard explained as her chin came to rest on Elena's shoulder. "It felt good though. The atmosphere, the smells, the roar of the crowd – it all brought back memories of when my Dad used to take me to ball games as a kid."

"You know she'll be talking about it for weeks," Elena murmured, turning her head so she could press her cheek against Shepard's forehead. "If we were staying here, she'd talk you into buying season tickets."

Shepard laughed. "Last month it was archaeology. This month it's biotiball…and it'll change again when we leave. Who knew that eight-year olds were such fickle creatures?" Shepard then straightened so she could spin her wife in her arms to face her. With a devilish smile, she manoeuvred her leg in between Elena's and applied enough pressure to make her gasp. "And they're also extremely heavy sleepers when they're exhausted…"

"You're a lecherous rogue, Commander." Elena's breath hissed in her throat but her body did not respond in the way her wife had hoped. Her worried mind would not allow her to relax. She gave Shepard a determined stare. "Are you sure we're making the right decision?"

Shepard paused in her attempts at seduction and an appropriately serious expression settled across her pale features. She stroked Elena's face, eventually winding a length of jet black hair gently around her finger. "I thought we'd already discussed this at length? It took me almost eight months to wrangle this posting. If you're still worried about moving to-"

"No, that's not it," Elena interrupted in a whisper. "Eden Prime is a beautiful colony, Max will love it. I'm worried about you – about your career. I was at lunch last week, remember? Admiral Anderson clearly insinuated that accepting the garrison post on Eden Prime would take you out of the running to be humanity's first SpecTRe."

"Elena…babe, I was always out of the running," Shepard replied honestly, letting the strand of hair unravel. "Sure, I had delusions of grandeur for a grand total of five minutes, but the Marine Corps isn't my whole life…or at least it hasn't been for a long time. Not since I met you and Max."

"But I never asked you to give up your career for us." Elena shook her head softly.

"I'm not giving up anything," Shepard replied firmly. "I made N7, I don't need another title to tell me I'm a damned good marine. They've got plenty of candidates for the SpecTRes without one engineer who would much rather be taking her kid to ball-games and making love to her wife than sorting out intergalactic shitstorms."

Elena fought to hold onto her stern expression as Shepard's lips curved up into a familiar grin. The woman was incorrigible. "Please, _pelirroja_, are you being honest with me?"

Shepard gently cupped her wife's cheeks. "One hundred percent. You and Max mean everything to me. All I can think about is our new life on Eden Prime." She chuckled at a sudden thought. "Hey, maybe I'll take up farming when I retire?"

"This is no joke, Viv! This is your career," Elena protested. Her wife's disarming grin clearly indicated that she did not share the same concern. She tried a different tactic. "Anderson went as far as to admit that the marines on Eden Prime won't be of the same calibre you're used to serving with-"

"I was born to spend my service whipping the dregs of the Alliance into shape," Shepard said in a low, gravelly voice that was entirely forced. "You know I'm a hardarse."

"Ha!" Elena laughed, thoroughly unconvinced. She suddenly narrowed her eyes. "How many credits did you spend on Max tonight?"

A guilty expression flickered across Shepard's face. "Ten," she eventually muttered.

"Who'd have thought that the famous Commander Shepard, Hero of Elysium and Star of Terra recipient would be a complete and utter pushover when faced with an eight-year old," Elena pointed out in a playful tone. She manoeuvred her body in close to the marine's and finally began to respond to her earlier physical suggestions. A few deft movements of her hips caused Shepard's breathing to turn hoarse with blatant need. "You know you're in trouble," she whispered.

Shepard leaned in close and teased Elena with the barest meeting of their lips. "There must be something I can do to make amends?"

"There is. What was it you were saying about making love to your wife?"

* * *

From her sweeping window near the apex of one of the city's most impressive skytowers, Miranda Lawson regarded the bright lights of downtown Vancouver with an impassive stare. The height rendered everything into a featureless barrage of colours and movement. Even though it was approaching two a.m., the city still teemed with life. Skycars sped past in the overhead lanes marked out between taller buildings. Miranda was too high up to make out actual people on the streets below, but she knew they were there. The faceless masses carried about their business, ignorant of those machinations that took place entirely in shadow. She brought her wine glass to her lips and drained the last gulp of Thessia Red before turning away from the window.

With the lights dimmed, her office was largely shrouded in darkness. She could barely make out the other figure moving in the room before he stepped forward into the soft glowing light that was all that filtered through the tint on the window. Operative Jacob Taylor was half-naked. The muscles across his back rippled as he retrieved his shirt from the floor. When he rose to his feet, his eyes travelled up the pale body of the woman standing in front of him. Miranda was unashamed of her own blatant nakedness. What was on display was perfect. Even as he stared at her, she tapped her finger against her empty glass impatiently. Jacob always did have the annoying habit of lingering after sex. It was almost as if he expected something more than what she had already given him.

"You heading home?" he asked as he casually slipped into his shirt.

Miranda hated small talk at the best of times. Her response was terse, "No."

"It's after two," Jacob pointed out. He risked a grin. "People already speculate that you sleep in your office."

Her lips tightened and she regretted summoning him to her office in the first place. She crossed the room in a business-like manner and found Jacob's jacket. When she threw it at him, he finally realised that she wasn't interested in 'chatting'.

"Fine," he muttered as he dragged it on.

Jacob briefly considered leaving her office with the jacket tossed over his shoulder and half his buttons undone, but he already knew there would be no one to witness his exit – Miranda always made sure of that. He wasn't sure why he persisted in trying to find a chink in her armour. From the start Miranda had clearly delineated the boundaries of their relationship. It extended to fucking and absolutely nothing else. It had always suited him well enough. He had needs and little interest in a serious relationship. This combined with the fact that Miranda was literally the most gorgeous woman he had ever laid eyes on made it easier to ignore her almost inhuman indifference. Even the manner in which she insisted that they fuck was carefully controlled to avoid unnecessary intimacy. Tonight he'd bent her over the desk and taken her from behind, knowing that she preferred him not being able to see her face. He'd barely finished in her when she impatiently stirred beneath him. She'd straightened and composed herself while he leaned against the edge of the desk, still gasping for breath. Moments later, she was sipping wine in front of her window. If it wasn't for the fact that she was naked, the act might never have happened.

"I guess I'll see you tomorrow," he said as he started toward the door.

"You won't," Miranda replied smoothly. She turned back to face the window. "The CRV _Palermo_ is scheduled to depart at 0600 - you'll be on it."

He grunted in irritation. With her curt words being the first notice he'd had of any assignment, he knew he would not be getting any sleep tonight. "I don't suppose you'd like to fill me in on where the hell I'm going?"

"Eden Prime. _He _will brief you en route." There was no need for Miranda to elaborate further on who 'he' was. Her brevity also concealed the fact that the name of the ship, its departure time, and destination was the extent of the information she had been given. She was now just as much in the dark as Jacob.

"Eden Prime?" Jacob was genuinely surprised. "Since when did the Project's remit extend to visiting a bunch of farmers?"

"It's doesn't. You've been seconded," Miranda informed him coolly.

"But-"

"The _Palermo_, 0600," Miranda interrupted.

There was a lengthy pause before Jacob eventually replied. "Understood."

Although Miranda was beginning to feel a slight chill as sweat cooled on her skin, she waited until she heard the sound of the door sliding closed behind Jacob before she turned. She retrieved her own clothes from the floor. As she pulled on her underwear, she momentarily wished that she had the patience to invite Jacob back to her apartment so she did not have to slip back into the clothes she had worn all day. Although her favoured skin-tight uniforms did not crease, she had to fight to ignore her revulsion at wearing soiled clothing. Fully clothed, Miranda paused beside her desk and meticulously straightened the various office accoutrements that had been dislodged or moved from their proper place.

Miranda wanted to allow more than enough time for Jacob to leave the building so she returned to her console and logged back in to her profile. She had received almost fifty messages in just one hour. Most she spared only a cursory glance, they could wait until morning. She approved a requisition for more resources from one of her deep cover agents and forwarded almost a dozen messages on to other members of her team, flagged for immediate attention. Only one message warranted more of her time and she saved it until last. The message was the highlight of her week. Miranda felt a flurry of heart palpitations as she opened it almost eagerly.

_[Subject: Status Report: SubProject Oscar_

_Project continues to operate within acceptable levels of efficiency. The regime operated at the Foxtrot level continues to be uncompromising and strict. Oscar has yet to show signs of rebelling. Theorise that this is due to a close relationship with Mike. Will continue to monitor this situation closely._

_Peer group remains acceptable save for one objectionable candidate (several minor drug offences, involvement with known anarchist protest organisation) who has been redistributed in the past twenty-four hours. The three current prospects for a romantic/sexual relationship remain the same as last week – two male, one female (This week 35a is favoured, but I expect it to change next week as per usual). All have been vetted, dossiers on each are up to date. _

_Educational achievement above average across the board save for Twentieth-Century Human History in which Oscar achieved a C. Please advise if correctional intervention is required. _

_No medical abnormalities to report. _

_No potential security breaches to report. _

_No further comments. _

_N]_

Without realising it, Miranda had started to smile. She read through the message a second time, consigning it to memory, before deleting it and scrubbing her trash folder. Although she felt somewhat reinvigorated, she forced herself to power down the console. The message didn't change the fact that she was in desperate need of a scalding hot shower – her stomach rumbled insistently – and food. The latter could wait, but a shower and her customary four hours of sleep could not.

Even when Miranda had finally left her office some minutes later, the smile continued to linger on her lips. _Don't worry, Ori_, she thought. The familiar pangs of longing continued to flutter in her chest. _I hated History as well._


End file.
